496 Transactions. — Botany. 



Further Notes, read 16th October, 1895. 



The following extract of a letter from Islv. A. Hamilton, in- 

 forming me of the discovery of Dactylanthiis at Tarawera, will 

 be read with interest. It is dated 28th March, 1883 : — 



" Some tinie ago, when I went to Lake Waikaremoana, 

 YOU were kind enough to send nie a list of plants which I 

 should endeavour to find, and made particular mention of 

 Dactylanthus taylori. x\lthough at that time I was not fortu- 

 nate enough to see or hear of any specimens, I. have been on 

 the look-out for it ever since, and last week, when collecting 

 at Tarawera, on the Taupo-Napier Eoad, I found it. 



" I was searching under the trees at the top of the ranges 

 for Corchjceps robertsii, and picked up a scaly bud like an 

 immature cone. On looking about to see where it had come 

 from I found a tuberous -looking mass, about lOin. by 6in., 

 covered with the circular scars from which these small spike- 

 buds had fallen. Disposed irregularly round the mass were 

 two different kinds of brown scaly spikes, the male (?) being 

 much longer than the female. Eemembering that you asked 

 me to examine the manner in which ic was attached to the 

 root of the tree, I removed as much as possible of the vege- 

 table mould and decaying leaves which partially covered the 

 plant, and, finding a small tuber, bearing two or three good 

 spikes, apparently distinct from the main mass, I carefully 

 cut away the root of the tree and placed it, with the plant 

 and the surrounding soil, in a box, carefully packing it with 

 moss so that it could not shift. I then cut two or three of the 

 mature male and female spikes from the larger plant, which I 

 left carefully covered with branches. I tried to trace the root 

 on which it seemed to grow back to the trunk of the tree, and 

 uncovered it all the way. Even then it was hard to say what 

 tree it was, as three — a Fagus, a Pittosporum, and some other 

 — had their roots closely intermixed. Some little distance 

 away I found the remains of another small mass, which had 

 been broken up by a falling tree. ... I carefully examined 

 the tuberous portion, and found that, although it rested on the 

 root of the tree, there was no attachment of any kind, but a 

 woody root passed down the lower part of the tuber into the 

 ground : this, unfortunately, I had cut through. The repre- 

 sentation given by Taylor is fairly good, but the tuber seems 

 to be growing from the root of the tree instead of on its own, 

 and must have been from a larger specimen than mine." 



Mr. Hamilton has suggested a question of considerable 

 importance, one perhaps that can 'only be determined by 

 watching the development of the plant from the embryo. In 

 the large specimen presented to the Colonial Museum by Mr. 

 Hill the woody rhizome viewed from below presents every 



